


Bluebottle Pie

by AlterImpulse



Category: Xenogears
Genre: Bad Cooking, Bugs & Insects, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gross, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, M/M, Nasty Food, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Slice of Life, mentions of vomiting, references to Fei's canon fantasy DID and unorthodox care for it, references to Solaris's canon cannibalism in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 20:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15893277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterImpulse/pseuds/AlterImpulse
Summary: Six years post Xenogears canon, Citan makes Fei's favorite food for his birthday. Although, the components just might make Doc sick. The things one does for love...Citan/Fei fluffiness, and some party/character interaction.





	Bluebottle Pie

**Author's Note:**

> TW/CW: Insects, gross food, reference to canon cannibalism from Solaris in the past.
> 
> Set six years post canon. Implied character deaths being Yui and Maison. Elly could be dead if you take it as to be in the same universe as Das Weltschmerz der Freien, otherwise she's just not there.

Disgust did not come easily to Citan Uzuki, nor did fear. After all, one did not exist in the poorer levels of the Solarian hives if one felt much of either, nor did one rise through the military from special recruitment before his voice had even cracked, to a direct sponsorship at Jugend as an Element, to the side of Emperor Cain himself as a Guardian Angel by being disgusted at anything (except the land dwellers and Shevatians, of course) or showing fear of anyone or anything (except one’s superiors and that needed to preserve one’s tactical advantage).

Nonetheless, one creature _did_ roll both fear and disgust into one neat package for him, and that was the simple bluebottle cockroach.

If Citan had to give a reason why, he could never place a specific reason, although their nastiness and tendency to spread disease in general had been noted after the plague as a way to demean most of the class from which he had been picked - it had even been rumored that the reason they scurried about the dumps and the lowest Third Class hives had been that a Lamb had brought them up from the ground, enough to make any Solarian hate their sight.

Their ubiquity as pests ranked fairly high - after all, the first time he had seen one after escaping the hives had been in a place where the usual “pest” was stray nanites or a bug-sized drone - the sterile, height of human technology halls of Jugend itself. He remembered seeing it scurry across the lecture hall floor, had remembered a small moment of wondering just _what_  he had seen before Sigurd’s leg had moved with lightning speed, his boot crushing the squirming, egg-filled bug.

They had been even _more_  ubiquitous on the surface at Lahan, where they were a native species to the ecosystem - in fact, most of his and Yui’s time that first year setting up his homestead/the medical office to cover for his observation activities had been consumed with eradicating the bugs from the place and keeping them _gone._ If anything, that had been the one place Citan had felt more than willing to risk his cover - for all the villagers saw the bluebottle cockroach as a delicacy and even farmed them, to both him and Yui, they were unsanitary pests and it was _war._

It had been a point of personal pride to him that even after the destruction of Lahan itself, even after the destruction of the _world_ at Krelian’s and God’s hands - that the closest a bluebottle cockroach had come to his house had been the one that had ran under his foot from the burning remains of Lahan as he had observed Id’s power for the first time.

 _Maybe_ ,  Citan had thought at the time, _that is the source of my fear. The only being other than myself, the Emperor, or Kahran Ramsus that could survive such an onslaught._

Now, the Emperor and Solaris itself were no more, as was much of the world and much of humanity itself, but the bluebottle roaches, in the most bitter of ironies, almost overran the grounds below his hilltop homestead. To catch enough had been simple - having set out a tray of mushy lettuce from his hydroponic setup and the remains of the rooster that had been the previous night’s dinner, all he had to do was wait, and soon he had two full bags of bluebottle cockroaches.

 _These things make me want to vomit even more than the human and demihuman flesh at the Soylent System factories_ , Citan thought, as he looked at the bags of bugs that seemed to themselves squirm and seethe with movement, and listened to that repulsive hiss-click of wings, and he felt beyond relieved as he threw the sealed bags into the freezer the moment he had returned home - although he checked compulsively for any escaped bugs in his home for the rest of the night, to Fei’s apparent amusement.

At least Fei had not seen him bring back the bags, something that brought a small smile to his face. They were, after all, part of the surprise for him that he planned - tomorrow would be Fei’s twenty-fifth birthday, and bluebottle roach pie was something Fei had mentioned craving, missing, the last time he had it having been when the original Lahan still stood, not the four homesteads on the ruins.

“Why don’t you come to bed? I’m sure you didn’t bring any roaches back up here from your walk. If there are any, the birds will get them.” Fei said.

Fei, Id, The Coward, Lacan, Kim, Abel - they had organized, had began to truly heal and blossom as themselves within his lover; unions of the incarnation personas to Fei’s personalities - Abel to the Coward, Kim to Id, Lacan to Fei - they had become true individuals, hosted between two forms, finally at an albeit uneasy peace that hurried attempt at fusion six years ago had never made. _If there is anything worth celebrating, it is this. That we are alive and you are healing._ Citan stood from looking under the cabinets with his flashlight. “You’re right, Fei. I assume it ran away,” he said, and drew Fei close for a kiss. “It is you now, correct?”

“Yeah. Id still prefers his body, and Abel...we are still working on a form for him. He’d rather just sit and watch in either of our bodies for now, though.” Fei said, and kissed him back. “You make me so happy. You...if it had not been for you and Sigurd, I don’t know what would have happened…”

“Do not think too much about it.” Citan kissed him once more. “Why do we not begin to celebrate your birthday tonight?”

“If that means what I think it does,” Fei whispered against his lips, “Yes. It’s been too long. You’re a bit hesitant when she’s here.”

“It’s embarrassing, Fei. I know Midori understands, she is _my_  and Yui’s daughter after all,” Citan said, with a small snort under his breath. “That said, it makes it _more_ embarrassing _._ That my _daughter_ could overhear us and could get into our minds and feelings and know we are-“

“So? Soon enough she’ll have a girlfriend or boyfriend and be just as embarrassed that her _dad_ knows they’re doing it, even though you wouldn’t intrude.” Fei lightly punched his arm. “I get it, though.”

===

Citan insisted on using the Yggdrasil’s kitchen to cook that next day alongside the ship’s cooks - if only that the very last thing he wanted in his own kitchen was the smell of bluebottle roach mince - first boiling it in a pot, then letting it cool two hours, then scooping it into the pie crust along with bulimy seeds (which he swore were named for their nauseating smell), durian juice, and chopped radish, to bake for what the recipe said was thirty minutes on high crisp settings.

Midori walked in past him and sniffed, turning up her nose in disgust. “That’s so gross, Dad. I hope you are not expecting us to eat something that awful!”

“Do not worry, I am not planning to consume one bite myself. It is a local delicacy Fei happens to enjoy, but I do not think anyone else here does. Except perhaps Chu-Chu or your pet toads.”

“Did the john back up again? Smells like someone took a shit in here,” Jessie’s voice, from the door. “Hyu, ahem, Citan? I kinda guessed it was you cookin.”

“Well, thank you very much for your vote of confidence,” Citan replied, as he stirred the boiling pot of bugs, his nose with a clamp he had found firmly attached. “I am making a special local delicacy. This will be your first time tending bar since Maison left us - did you remember to stock some non-alcoholic drinks? For Sigurd and Fei and the kids if they order? And enough booze so you and me and Bart can at least get buzzed.”

“With how this smells already, I hope we got enough to go beyond buzzed.” Jessie said, and laughed as he wandered back out of the kitchen, past the other cook staff making food that seemed far more appealing.

Margie walked in a few moments later, taking a sniff herself. “Bluebottle roaches! Though I like them pickled now, I wonder how they taste boiled!” She took the wooden ladle and fished one from the pot, letting it cool. “Hmm, I think this could use some pickling spice. Could I add some?”

“Why not,” Citan mumbled. After all, as far as he was concerned, there was no way to make this _worse,_   and Margie probably did know more about land cooking styles than he did.

“Yeah, ever since I got pregnant, I can’t have enough of these!” She smiled widely, and withdrew a jar of Nisan pickling spice from her bag, shaking a fairly large amount into the pot and more onto another roach she had pulled from it, before popping it into her mouth.

 _Do not vomit. Do not. Do not. That would not be a good addition._  Citan took off his glasses and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to think of anything more pleasant.

“I thought we had all agreed upon no more biological weapon development,” Ramsus said, as he wandered past Margie and poked at the pot with the ladle. “May I ask what this one does?”

Citan laughed at that, thankful for the distraction from the nausea. “It is actually bluebottle roach mince boiling, for a gift for Fei. A local delicacy, bluebottle roach pi-“

With that, the ex-general of the entire Solaris military grabbed his own stomach and bolted from the kitchen with a faint half-burp sound.

“Can you watch this?” Citan said to Sigurd as he walked by, in desperate need of some fresh air himself, and he knew the boiling the roaches wasn’t even the worst part - the odor of roach paired with bulimy seed and durian juice as the pie baked _was_ , to the extent that he had once personally shuttered the bakery in Lahan for that very reason.

“If you give me that electrical clamp on your nose.” Sigurd said, and reached for it. “I like Fei, but I do think you are possibly going to an extent for him that I would think unreasonable. These things are rather nasty.”

“Why I am glad the other cooks are being such good sports, and staying in there to make food the rest of us can stand. Although I did let Fei eat recycled human once, so I owe him this.” Citan said, as he watched Sigurd disappear into the kitchen while he walked outside - even the smells of overgrowth and rotting vegetation and wildlife that hung in the air of a world with maybe, at best, a human population of one thousand over the entire planet, the heaviness of pollen in the air that made him sneeze and his eyes water - even that smelled refreshing.

Although, he still admittedly missed the smell of the air in Etrenank at some points. Even if he knew that it was simply that it mostly offloaded its most polluting industries to the ground bases and the lowest hive sectors… the clarity of barely polluted high atmospheric air had a smell, a taste he missed.

A few breaths of fresh air were enough, and Citan walked back inside. He noticed the pot was boiling again, with something else added. “What is that?”

“Aquvy sea snails,” Sigurd said, and took the clamp off his nose and handed it back to Citan. “Billy and Prim dropped in while you were out. They said the roaches alone don’t give it the proper sliminess and crunch.”

“S..Sliminess?” Citan stared at the mix for a moment before he averted his eyes. “The next time someone tells me how bland Solarian food was…”

One more hour of cooling, and then he took the pie crust he had made beforehand and quickly scooped the mix of boiled roaches and snails into it. _Four tablespoons of bulimy seed. One freshly squeezed durian. Five chopped radishes…_

“A bluebottle roach pie? Oh, I cannot wait!” Chu-Chu clapped her hands from behind him. “But aren’t chu forgetting something, Doc?”

 _How about this entire plan,_  Citan thought, but realized he probably should not say that at this point. At least not with how happy Chu-Chu seemed. “What am I forgetting?”

“A beet sugar glaze for the crust! I always carry some with me! Just sprinkle some on it and it makes it crunch so perfectly! I can’t believe chu would forget that!” She held out several packets of milled beet sugar. “I’m sure chu will be a better cook someday! Chu need to learn if chu and Fei are going to be married!”

 _Why do I feel I have just been insulted?_  Nevertheless, he sprinkled the sugar packets over the crust, before he put the entire mess together - the top crust already seemed to be sinking into the mixture - and threw it into the oven.

“Hey! What the hell is going on here?” Rico stormed into the kitchen. “Ramsus and Sigurd are both out in the gear bay puking and I think they-“ With that, he took one deep sniff and promptly fainted.

Bart’s voice echoed over the intercom. “Hey, Sig, tell me how to get this damn ventilation system going to blow the kitchen air outside!”

===

Citan looked over at Maria, then at the Yggdrasil’s bar and gun room, now decorated for a birthday party. “For the first true celebration we have had in a long while, you and everyone else have done amazing work…”

“Yeah, twenty-five is a very special birthday! It used to be the celebration of one’s life in Zeboim.” She looked down at her hands. “It is a shame Emeralda didn’t want to help.”

“It probably hurt her to ask.” Citan said. “It has not been that long since the incident.”

“What incident,” and that was when he realized he had never told Maria of what had happened. He would, at another time.

“We will discuss it later. By the way, while this is a surprise party, you do know, correct? Nothing that might alarm Fei or make him feel in danger even momentarily. He is still quite fragile.”

“Something we all knew,” Maria said. “I’m just happy he feels good enough to appreciate this.”

“Myself as well. For as limited as we are here, as limited as I am… he has recovered so that it almost overwhelms me.” Citan blinked behind his glasses: that had been almost too true, too raw to admit. That they were here, at least most of them, and that the planet itself still was… “I must go find him.”

===

Citan took a sip from the martini Jessie had made. _Rather_ _strong but good,_ he thought. _He will definitely live up to Maison’s legacy._

Fei sat next to him, a glass of mint seltzer at his side as Bart, Sigurd, and the crew of the Yggdrasil hauled in plate after plate of entrees from around the planet’s cuisine, with a few dishes from Shevat on Queen Maria Balthasar’s request and even Solaris at Ramsus’ request - although, obviously, the vegetarian take on the latter.

“Are we sure we should even bring this slop in,” one of the crew mumbled to Sigurd. “It’s awful. A greasy half burnt attempt at mince pie with roaches and snails, crust sunken in and it stinks too!”

“Go ahead, but cover it quickly if people begin to feel unwell.”

The look in Fei’s eyes entirely took Citan by surprise: a look of absolute adoration, of pure happiness as he grabbed a fork and took a slice of the pie, as Chu-Chu looked at it with a slightly disappointed look. “I know you made this for me,” Fei said, between bites. “I haven’t had this in years! Not since before...before then! How did you know…”

“I listen to you. You mentioned how much you craved this, how much you missed it-“

“It tastes different, but even a little better than I remember your cooking.” Fei leaned against him. “Like you had some help making it.”

“I, ah, kind of did.” He felt in that moment as if he were perfect, the world, despite everything, was. “The others discovered what I wanted to surprise you with and helped out. I am thankful for all of you.”

“As am I,” Fei said. “You… all of you have forgiven me once more… have given me another chance while I try to get myself together. And you,” he turned to Citan. “You… you love me. Despite knowing what I could do to those I love.”

“I do, Fei.”

“So now, here, try some!” Fei seemed so happy that, for a moment, Citan wondered if Jessie had spiked the seltzer water. “C’mon. You look like you’ve never had a good bluebottle roach pie! I’ll even let you eat it from my lips!”

 _That is because I hate these things_ . _But for Fei and for his birthday, if I must…_

Fei placed a forkful of boiled roach mince between their lips, and if Citan focused on Fei’s eyes, on that look, on those lips he could ignore it. He took the bite of food into his mouth, and quickly swallowed.

“It has a very...unique and complex taste.” He could literally _feel_ the sliminess, which he had never even considered as a way to describe food before that moment.

“You know…” Fei looked at him, that same look of absolute love. “I know you hate this. And you still can’t cook. But… you tried to make my favorite food, and that’s something I never thought anyone would do. Until now. That’s what makes it so good to me.” A smile. “If you don’t mind, I’ll eat the rest.”

“Of course I do not mind,” Citan said, and felt relieved as he reached for another drink from Jessie, and the dish he shared a love for with Ramsus and Sigurd - the creamed cauliflower and chipped meat in white wine - with the meat replaced with tofu. “Would you like to try this?”

“...Absolutely not,” Fei said. “It’s not even that I suspect its source, now, but it’s kinda boring! You…need to try something new! Even if you don’t like bugs.” Fei giggled at that. “And even if the Solarian palate and stomach is sensitive. Remember how Sig got you to try barbecued dinosaur? And you liked it?”

“Yes, I do. So tell me, Fei, what do you think I will enjoy more than the first food I could eat all of that I please?”

Fei grabbed a plate of the spiciest Aquvy fish curry. “Try it? For me? I tried this for the first time on the Thames when it still existed.”

Citan picked at some of the fish and that year’s crop of wild rice, which once again grew in Aquvy. He nibbled at it tentatively at first, expecting an awful taste such as the bugs - for so much of his life, he had been told Solarian cooking was the most refined for flavor, the most subtle. Yet the complex flavor of the fish and rice, the earthy taste of non-hydroponic root vegetables and the spicy harsh bite of a pepper not even allowed in Solaris - everything about it was so much better than his usual way of preparing fish either as fried fish cakes or as plain sashimi. “This is amazing, Fei.”

“I’m going to help you become a good cook yet!” Fei said, as he reached for Margie’s shaker of pickling spice and doused a bowl of Elfanana pudding in it. “But that bluebottle roach pie made me so happy. As much as that fish curry seems to make you.”

===

They sat there that night, and looked out at the stars. “You know, Fei, now that we are alone, you did not have to pretend to enjoy my cooking.”

“Who said I was pretending?” Fei took Citan’s hand in his own as they sat there. “You did your best, because you love me. That’s what’s mattered all along, and what I lost sight of and found again.” He leaned back against him. “I love you.”

“Mm, and if I said I did as well?”

“You don’t have to say it,” Fei whispered, as he snuggled against him. “I know you do. I’ve seen it so many times…”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
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